


The Five Stages of Being a Naruto Geek by Nagachika Hideyoshi

by Skiewrites



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: (I'll come back to these tags I promise!), Canon Compliant, Childhood, Childhood Friends, Gift Fic, M/M, Manga, Minor Character Death, Sunshine Boy Nagachika Hideyoshi, naruto - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-22 18:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16603154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skiewrites/pseuds/Skiewrites
Summary: It’s very easy for six year olds to gain interests, and it’s very easy for those interests to carry on into the teenage years into early adulthood.It’s not that easy for Hide, always falling in and out with his interests, but he’s got bigger interests at heart, it seems.(Or: Hide has a very complicated relationship with his favourite manga ‘Naruto’, but at the end of the day, he’ll do anything for Kaneki.)





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orogenese](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orogenese/gifts).



It all started when Hide is six, and when Hide was bored.

Of course, he was six, and six year olds were easily bored due to their short attention spans, but that fact did not change the previous fact that Nagachika ‘call me Hide, not ‘Yoshi, please’ Hideyoshi was bored. Normally, when a six year old was bored, they would tell someone, they would go to their parents or guardian and say/moan/yell that they were bored, that they had absolutely nothing to do, but Hide couldn’t do that, unlike other six year olds that he knew off at school

See, his father was what was called a Ghoul Investigator, not that Hide could fully comprehend what sort of job that was at the time, which meant that he spent long periods of time between school and meal time on his own, in the house. But it just went to show how much his father trusted him if he was allowed to stay home all by himself! Of course, he wasn’t allowed to touch the oven, but the microwave was fine, and he was forbidden from entering his father’s study, but other than that, he was free to whatever he wanted, something that he knew the other kids would be jealous off.

Except, there was nothing to do.

He had finished reading all of his books for the third time now, even the one that didn’t have any pictures in, and there was nothing on the TV for him as they didn’t have all the fancy channels that Rin had praised all day yesterday about, he checked when he got in. He wasn’t in the mood for drawing, as there was no one to see and admire it, and it wasn’t like there was anyone to play board games with in the house.

So, he did the same thing he did whenever he was bored, he sat on the sofa and watched the clock and the door, and waited for his father to come in, like he had done for the last week or so now. Of course, it was pretty boring in itself as nothing changed except the time on the clock until his father walked in, but he began to find that not a lot of things were able to take his mind of off the fact that the house was empty, and that his father was late, and the anxiety of him never coming back just grew and grew and grew and-

The door opened up, and a tall man with a briefcase and tired eyes walked into the apartment, taking his hat and shoes off by the door, and that he as far as he got until Hide had vaulted himself over the sofa like he had seen his father do on the news once and ran to give him a hug.

“Ahh, good evening ‘Yoshi,” his father smiled down at him, and Hide could do nothing but stare up and give the man the biggest brightest smile he could give, making him laugh.

He always liked his father’s laugh, it was a deep rich chuckle, and it always made everything bad that had happen that day wash away from Hide’s skin, and it always managed to make Hide smile more to hear it everyday when his father walked into the apartment.

“Did you have a good day today?” he asked as he entered the kitchen and placed his briefcase on the table and to open the cupboards, frowning at the empty shelves and the dusty corners. He had forgotten to get food again. Take out it was. Hide grinned at his father’s question, before frowning somewhat.

“Yeah, I guess, we did drawing at school again today, and that was fun, but I was bored again when I got in,” Hide muttered as he climbed onto a chair, sitting on his knees as his father got his phone out and started ordering their dinner. Again.

Takeout was getting boring too.

“Well, I’ve got something that might help with that,” his father said, and he went into his bag and pulled out a book, and hands it to the child. Hide frowned as he looked over the book, the manga now that he could have a closer look at it. The front was colourful, and the kid on the front looked kind of similar to him, if he decided one day to dye his hair bright yellow and draw lines on his face.

It didn’t look too bad…

But he wasn’t sure if he wanted to _read_ to cure his boredom, he was six years old after all.

But, the next night, when he gets home and his father’s not home again and he’s bored again, he opens the manga, and he is entranced. The pictures are ten times better than any of the pictures that he’s drawn at school, they’re even better than the teachers! The actual story is pretty simple to read and follow along, even if he does stumble across a few of the characters and kanji, its pretty obvious by the context and the drawing of what they’re supposed to be.

So, he reads, and he’s bored still, but less bored than before, until he gets about halfway through and is excited about what is going to happen next, what new moves they’re going to perform and what other ninja things are going to be introduced next, that he doesn’t even hear his father come through the door and put the take out on the table, not until his father come into the living room with a small look of confusion and worry one his face, before it relaxes into something that Hide doesn’t really recognise, as he sits down by his son and listens to him ramble on about everything to do with the manga.

It’s fun, and Hide couldn’t believe that it could happen with just reading. His father smiled when Hide explained something that he missed while he was at work, and they both ignored the extra bandages that his father had on that night, because this happened often, and it was normal.

And reading became the new normal too, just like his father bringing home a new book every month or so, and just like Hide not being bored when he comes back home from school anymore.

x-x-x

“And then they beat him up for being bad and then they win! How cool is that!” Hide rambled to Rin, who was sat in in front of him, while he tried to draw one his favourite panels, but it wasn’t turning out as well as he was hoping, as the hands were unproportional and looked weird and the hair was too long and it all just looked wrong.

“Ugh, you’re such a geek!” Rin moaned loudly, sighing loudly as she went back to her own drawing, a small house that had a unicorn in the background because ‘every house has a unicorn’ according to the girl, which makes no sense because unicorns don’t even exist, but Hide didn’t want to disappoint her or anything, so he didn’t say anything about it.

“I-I’m not a geek,” Hide argued, but he’s not sure what else to say, because he didn’t even know what a geek was, but he was pretty sure that he was not a geek, or someone would have told him beforehand, his father would have let him know if he was a geek if he was actually a geek.

“Yes, yes you are! You like Naruto and only geeks like Naruto,” Rin pointed out, adding some red to her drawing, and Hide stopped his drawing to look down at it.

“What is a geek?” Hide asked quietly, and the girl looked up from her work with snarl on her face.

“Weirdos. They’re weird and nasty and horrible and they like Naruto. I know this because my brother is weird and nasty and horrible to me and he likes Naruto and he says that he’s a geek because he like Naruto so you must be a geek because you like Naruto too,” she said in a matter of factly way, and Hide could feel tears well up in his eyes because he’s not weird and nasty and horrible, but he must be because he liked Naruto and everyone who like Naruto was a geek, and geeks are weirdos.

“I’m not a geek, I don’t even like Naruto, you’re lying!” Hide yelled, gaining a couple of weird looks from the other his class, because he never yelled like this.

“Am not!” Rin replied. Looking down at the horrible drawing, he tried his best not to cry. Instead, he frowned hard and started to tear up the paper into small squares, so no one had to look at it too. He picked up the small pieces and scrunched them up in his hand, so he wouldn’t drop them on his way to the bin.

“Unicorns aren’t real,” he said to her as he walked away to the bin, ignoring her screams of how ‘they were real’ and ‘that’s what my brother says too so you have to be a geek too!’. He sat down at a new table, and draw a house of his own, a better house, one that didn’t have a house, just the house and him and his father, both of them standing and smiling, his father with no bandages because he had his special suitcase.

When he got home that night, he picked up all the books that he had collected and put them in a box, because he didn’t think his father would be happy if he binned all of the books that he spent his money on. When he was done, he wondered what he should do next, because now that the books had been put away, he was back to square one, where square one was him being bored.

There would be nothing on the TV for him as they didn’t have all the fancy channels that Rin always talks about. He wasn’t in the mood for drawing, not after today, and it wasn’t like there was anyone to play board games with in the house, since his father was working, because he was always working.

So, he did the same thing he did whenever he was bored, he sat on the sofa and watched the clock and the door, and waited for his father to come in, like he had done before he started to read Naruto, because he didn’t like Naruto anymore, because only geeks liked Naruto and he wasn’t a geek.

However, just the thought of the books that were now hidden underneath his bed and the consequences of enjoying them made his eyes water again but this time he couldn’t stop the tears from falling this time, so he hid his face in the corner of the couch and sobbed loudly, because he didn’t want to be a weirdo and he didn’t want to be weird and nasty and horrible, so he wasn’t allowed to like Naruto anymore because of it, and it made Hide sad that he wasn’t allowed to like something anymore.

“Oh ‘Yoshi, what’s wrong?” Hide looked up from the sofa to look at his father, filled of tiredness and concern, and Hide could sob more.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay,” his father said, walking around the furniture, and sitting down next to Hide before picking him up onto his lap and hugging him tightly, something that Hide accepted without hesitation, holding his father tightly as he sobbed more.

“I’m not allowed to like Naruto,” Hide hiccupped into his father’s jacket leaning into his father’s touch as he rubbed his back.

“What? Who said that?” his father asked, causing Hide to break away from the hug to look up at him.

“Rin said that only geeks read Naruto, and that geeks are weird and nasty and horrible, and I don’t want to be any of that!” Hide exclaimed, and while he had no more tears, but his voice was still thick and heavy.

“Hey, you’re not any of those things at all! Reading Naruto doesn’t make you a geek, and geek doesn’t mean those things,” his father explained with a small smile on his face, and it warmed Hide to the tips of his toes.

“Really?” Hide asked, hope growing in his voice.

“Yep,” “Tell you what, this weekend, we’ll read them all together from the start, and then both of us will be geeks, yeah?” Hide’s eyes widened at the suggestion. His father never had time off like this. More often than not, Hide would spend the day with Rin and her parents, but he was glad that he didn’t have to, since he wasn’t sure if she liked her at the moment, not after what she told him today.

“Yeah!” Hide shouted out in excitement, hugging his father before jumping off his lap and asking what was for dinner that night, asking if his father if he was going to cook that night instead of just ordering take out, something that he agree too, much to Hide’s joy, and he started to ramble on what else they were going to do that weekend, excitement filling his voice for the rest of the night.

The weekend never came. Hide’s father never came home Friday night.


	2. Stage Two

Hide didn’t know how to feel about this.

The strange ‘feelings’ (her words, not his own) doctor said that this was normal, that everyone goes through this, and that he’ll find out what he’s feeling soon, but he thinks that she’s wrong because not everyone’s father was a Ghoul Investigator and not everyone’s father dies in the ‘line of duty’.

Well, that what they said at the funeral. Not to him of course. They just told him that he died because of some ‘Bad Men’ and that he won’t be coming back. He hated the fact that they called ghouls ‘bad men’. It was hardly comparable. ‘Bad men’ were people in TV shows who wanted to destroy the world or take everything from the good guys. Ghouls were just ‘monsters’, or at least, that’s what his father had called them.

He’s not that stupid. Just because he was seven doesn’t mean that he can’t hear the adult mutter about him being slow, nor does it mean that he doesn’t notice the way that the smiles are too fake when they are talking to him and the way that they sigh in relief when he walks away from them, so they can go back to their adult conversations.

But, that being said, he still doesn’t know how to feel about any of it.

He doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that someone had gone into his room and packed his bags for him (he’s never going to see his home again now). He doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that he’s moving school, moving to a different Ward, where there’s less ‘ghoul activity’ if he uses one of the phrases that the adults used but doesn’t really make too much sense. He doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that he has to live with these two brand new people who he’s never seen before in his life, who seem really nice, but also too nice, in a weird and crazy sort of way, because how can people be ‘too nice’?

He doesn’t know how to feel about any of this, and he tells the ‘feelings’ doctor this every time that he has a session with her and she only smiles and takes a note on her clipboard and then looks up and says that ‘everyone goes through this Hideyoshi’ or ‘it’s okay to not know how to feel about a new and strange situation’.

“What do you do in your spare time Hideyoshi?” she asked, and Hide hated it, because she was always asking questions like this.

“Nothing really,” he muttered, because he just didn’t have the time to do things like that anymore, not when he had these sessions all the time and he had to have ‘bonding time’ with the people he was living with and he had to make sure all his homework was done and his room was tidy and everything that came along with moving into a new house with new people and with the knowledge of never ever ever seeing the one person you love to the bottom of your heart ever again in your life. 

“What about before your dad passed away,” she asked, and she always said, ‘passed away’ or ‘passed on’, never said ‘died’ even though it was the thing that happened.

“We read some manga together,” he mentioned, and as the ‘feelings’ doctor smiled and went to open her mouth, Hide butted in, “But we stopped before he died because I didn’t want to read them anymore.”

“That may be the case,” She replied, that smile never leaving her stupid face, quickly writing something else on her clipboard that Hide wasn’t allowed to read, “But maybe you should read them again? It might make you feel close to your father.”

Hide didn’t say anything for the rest of the session, instead he sat there and stared at her while she tried to make small talk after that.

He sighed as he sat down in the car, slamming the car door after him and crossing his arms and not making any attempt to put his seatbelt on yet.

“How did it go?” Yuuto asked from the driver seat, looking at him using the interior mirror, and Hide just shrugged and lead back into the car, not moving yet to buckle up.

“C’mon buddy, you need to talk to us,” he coaxed, and Hide just frowned at him.

“I don’t see why I need to talk about these things is all,” he muttered, “I’m not feeling anything” Yuuto sighed as he turned around on the seat to look at Hide clearly.

“You’re grieving, remember? That’s what the doctor said, and that’s why you’re not feeling anything,” he answered patiently, and Hide didn’t know how he could be so patient because this was probably the one thousandth time he’s explained it to Hide, abet in a really poor and confusing way, so he just shrugged in response, before butting on his seatbelt so that Yuuto could start driving them away from the clinic.

“Well, you’re starting your new school tomorrow. Are you excited?” Yuuto asked, and Hide shrugged again, looking out of the window in boredom.

“Rin’s not going to be there, is she?” Hide asked sadly, and Yuuto let out a sigh, which only showed that she wasn’t going to be there, which made Hide sad because Rin was his best friend, even if she said some horrible things about geeks being horrible and nasty and weird.

“It’s okay though, I’m sure that you’ll make some new friends, better friends than Rin, because they’re not going to call you names here, okay?” Hide smiled and nodded at the words, because that made sense because they wouldn’t know that he reads Naruto here, not that he reads it anymore, but that’s not the point at all.

But, as he stood in the middle of the playground watching the other kids run around with their friends, he didn’t realise how much harder it seemed to make friends with people who already had friends, people that they had grown up with and knew so much better than they knew him.

 Maybe it would have been better for him to stay at his old school, because he had Rin there, even if she could be a bit mean to him sometimes. But then he wouldn’t be standing in the middle of the playground looking a bit lost.

Sighing, Hide walked back into the building, taking the time to have a look around his new school. It was very colourful, walls filled to the brim with students’ work and posters about what they’re covering in lessons. Hide slowly made his way back to his classroom, thinking that he’ll just sit in there until lunch was over, and maybe he’ll just try and make a friend during the next lesson, and he’ll follow them around for a while, just until he got comfortable with everyone.

He entered the classroom quietly, but just before he sat down at the table he was sat on during the previous lessons, his eyes caught onto the other person in the classroom, a small black-haired boy who was sitting at his own desk, his nose deep into a book. And not just any book, a book without any pictures, which was the compete opposite from what Hide was used to.

Why would anyone want to read a book like that?

“Do you always read book like those ones?” Hide asked loudly, causing the boy to jump in his seat, looking up at him with something akin to fear, making Hide feel really bad about scaring him.

“Sor-sorry,” the boy muttered, his eyes downcast and his face flushing. Hide put his hands up defensively, his eyes wide.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that!” Hide said apologetically, causing he other kid to look back at him with slight confusion. “I’ve just move here, and I don’t have any friends at the moment,” Hide explained, scratching his cheek slightly, not mentioned the fact that he had lived in the ward for a solid month, and that can’t be counted as ‘just moved here’.

“So, uh, do you want to be my friend?” Hide asked, and the other boy stared at him wide-eyed for a solid minute before solidly nodding his head. Hide gave him a million watt smile before grabbing a chair and sitting next to him while the boy silently watched him as he did so.

“I’m Hideyoshi Nagachika, but you can call me Hide, since you’re my best friend now!” Hide said with a smile, putting his hand forward fir Kaneki to shake. He knew that this is who people introduced themselves because this is what everyone did at his father’s funeral, and this is what he did when he met Asahi and Yuuto before he went to live with them, and it’s what the ‘feelings’ doctor did with him when he met her.

 “Oh,” the kid said, shock evident on their face. However, they looked back up at Hide with a small smile on his face, and he put his book down so he could reach for Hide’s outstretched hand. “I’m Kaneki Ken,” he said, and Hide grinned widely as he grabbed a chair so he could sit with his new best friend.

“So, what is your book about?” Hide asked, and the boy looked shocked for a second, before a smile formed on his face, and he started to go one about the plot of the book, mentioning characters and plots that seemed very detailed and somewhat boring to Hide, but the way that he spoke about them with such knowledge made him sit up and absorb every word.

Before long, the bell rung loudly and shocked the pair out of their conversation. Hide apologised when he put the chair back and promised Kaneki that they would talk more about it later one, and Kaneki seemed so happy that Hide suggested it, that when Hide got back to his desk, he too was very happy.

“Ugh, the nerd stayed inside to read again!” Hide eyes widen at the word, and he hated the way that hurt spread across Kaneki’s face as the group of boys walked passed him to their seats, flicking him as they walked passed them. Kaneki’s book was currently out of sight, hidden away in his bag as soon as the bell rang. The action had confused Hide at the time, but now that he had watched the scene in front of him unfold, Kaneki’s action’s suddenly made sense to him.

Hide found it hard to focus on the rest of the school day, and he couldn’t find Kaneki when the class was dismissed, as he disappeared into the crowd of a million children.

X-X-X

“He looked so hurt when they said that to him,” Hide moaned to Asahi as he drove the pair to Asahi’s house. Asahi nodded, and smiled at him with kindness that Hide only say in his father before he died.

“Well, other than telling your teacher about it, maybe you should show him that you like reading too,” Asahi suggested, and Hide nodded to his suggestion, not really taking it in until they got home and Hide walked into the room that Asahi and Yuuto said would be his as long as he needed it, which didn’t make too much sense to him at the moment but he was sure that he would understand it sooner.

Going underneath his bed, Hide dragged out a box filled with his manga, some other titles accompanying his Naruto collection. It took him a moment of just staring at the mix of covers before he gained enough courage to pick one up, one of the ones that he had read with his father. Flicking through a few pages, Hide stopped on a random panel and stoked it lightly as he read the familiar characters. His father had read this one with him when he had gotten home, and they had acted this one out, shouting and screaming around the apartment before a neighbour hit the wall loudly, which had made them laugh before they started for they started to make dinner.

They weren’t ever going to be able to do that anymore, because he was never going back to that apartment, his father was dead and gone and never ever coming back.

The tear drop that landed on the page surprise Hide, and so did the second one, and the third one.

Hide threw the book across the room, before going over to the bed and screaming loudly into the pillow, screaming still when Asahi came in with a look of confusion.

“Hideyoshi, are you okay?” he asked, and Hide only screamed louder into the pillow, now wet with tears and spittle and snot. Asahi sighed before going over to the bed, sitting on the bed next to Hide’s lying form, and he started to rub Hide’s back in comfort, which only made Hide cry even more.

But like everything, the crying came to an end, but Hide felt like he didn’t have the energy to get up, or even to move his face from the pillow. But despite that, Asahi stilled rubbed his back, and it was now that Hide realised that he was whispering words to him, and despite wanting to cry some more, he just didn’t have the energy to do so.

A hand went through his hair slowly, tucking the longer strands behind his ear, and despite himself, hide found himself leaning into the touch, letting a large sigh at the way that it felt to have fingers massaging his tense scalp.

“Feeling better Hideyoshi?” Asahi asked, and Hide looked up at him and shrugged slightly, not letting go of the soaked pillow. Asahi smiled at him, going back to running a hand through his hair. “That’s okay, because everything going to become better, just like the doctor said, yeah?” Hide shrugged again, and this time it was Asahi turn to let out a sigh, before patting Hide’s back and smiling. “I’ll bring us some food, and you can eat it in your bed, how does that sound,” Hide nodded slightly, feeling slightly cold when the weight left his bed.

He sighed again as he sat up, leaning his back against the wall. For some reason, he felt very light, like someone had just taken an elephant off of his back, and Hide light the light, floaty feeling that it left him in, even if the clogged-up nose and puffy, itchy eyes were horrible.

The manga on the floor caught is eye, and a lump started to form in his throat, but this time he was able to swallow it down and keep the tears back. Getting up slowly from the bed, Hide walked over to the book, picking it up and going back to the page where he left it, now stained with tears in three small places. Sitting down on the floor, Hide started to read it again, getting so in depth into the plot that he jumped when Asahi tapped him on the shoulder, a plate of food in his hands and a kind smile on his face.

He explains what was going on in the scene to Asahi, who smiles and asks about other things about it. The next day, Hide brings in the first manga to school and, when break time rolled around, he showed it to Kaneki. While he was not intrigued about the plot and characters, much in the same way that Hide was not intrigued in Kaneki’s work, he still listened to Hide’s words, and that was enough for him.

(And if the bullies started to leave Kaneki alone to attack Hide because he was much more open about his appreciation towards the series, well, Hide wouldn’t have it any other way, not when Kaneki started to smile more and talk more and laugh more and become the best friend that hide ever asked for.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not uploading yesterday, I was very ill ;-;. Though, I can promise that next week's chapter will be on time and have a minimal about of angst in it. 
> 
> See you then!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> I've had this in the works for a long time now, but it's finally complete and ready to share with you! I will be updating once a week until all five chapters are up. 
> 
> In other news, I am modding a Tokyo Ghoul Reverse Bang, so I shall shamelessly self promote here. We are still accepting betas to join, so click [here](https://goo.gl/forms/Vvs21p8zEaSUUDD43)if you would like to partake, but be quick, as the form closes on the 1st December 2018. We also have a discord server [(here)](https://discord.gg/yfFXUpc) that is open to everyone who would like to be up to date with the bang, not just for the people partaking in the event. 
> 
> Like what you read? Please leave comments and kudos, and have a look at my new [tumblr!](https://skiewrites.tumblr.com) There's not a lot there at the moment, but more will be coming soon!


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